Telemedicine is the result of advances in telecommunications technology in the field of healthcare. This phenomenon helps to raise the effectiveness of treatment, as well as diagnosis, to a qualitatively new level. Thanks to telemedicine technologies it is possible, for example, to provide highly qualified and timely medical care to remote patients. In addition, due to this method, doctors are able to determine the diagnosis based on received by e-mail, for example, images of x-rays or any laboratory and instrumental studies of the patient.
Given that the bulk of narrow specialists perform their work in specialized medical institutions in large cities, this leads to some centralization of medical care. True, the achievements of telemedicine eliminate the need for a physician's physical presence on site.
What is telemedicine?
Telemedicine is a modern approach that allows doctors to consult with their patients, who are located in the most remote areas and corners of the country. At the same time, doctors can rely not only on their own experience in order to consult seriously ill patients. Due to telemedicine technologies, doctors and specialists have the opportunity to listen to lectures given by renowned scientists regarding the most pressing problems in healthcare and medical science. In addition, thanks to this, it is possible to maintain professional contact with leading world scientific and research centers, as well as with colleagues from various regional hospitals along with leading specialists of regional clinics. Extremely attractive is the possibility of using video conferencing technologies, which allow both parties to carry out live communication in video mode. Telemedicine is gaining popularity in the healthcare system.
Need for peer advice
When a doctor is confronted with a difficult case in his practice, he usually consults and consults with colleagues. Often there is a need to communicate with doctors not only from their place of work, but with specialists from other medical institutions, both in Russia and abroad. At the same time, doctors exchange images, medical records, video images, and so on. Against the background of the modern level of development of information technologies, the exchange of electronic versions of various documents has become possible, as well as communication via the Internet, as well as the holding of various video conferences.
A little history about telemedicine in the healthcare system
In fact, telemedicine is not such a new phenomenon as it might seem. In fact, the very idea of providing remote medical care appeared a hundred years ago. It was at that time immediately after the invention of the telephone that people made attempts to transmit the sound of heart sounds so that specialists on the other end of the wire could evaluate the actual state of health of the patient.
After the active exploration of space began in the second half of the last century, the need arose for remote monitoring of the physiological state of astronauts. It was then that the first telemetry systems began to appear, which subsequently found their application in aviation, sports and military medicine as well. That is, Russian telemedicine has been around for a long time.
The 50s. The first steps
In the fifties of the last century, the Canadian doctor Yutras was the first to transmit the video image from the clinic to his home receiver. He subsequently developed a telemedicine system that connected the two hospitals in Montreal for teleradiological diagnostics. Then, medical students at the Psychiatric Institute in the United States for the first time carried out a remote demonstration of patients suffering from neurological diseases. But the most striking achievement of those years was the transmission of an X-ray of the lungs from America to Canada via coaxial cable. Telemedicine technology was already being applied.
Development in the 70s
In the seventies of the last century, a huge number of telemetry systems were developed, as well as devices for various fields of medicine. Mostly these were particular experimental devices that were used in particular cases.
And finally, the most important stage in the development of telemedicine was the emergence of mobile stations, which made it possible to provide remote assistance in remote areas using satellite technology. Thanks to such a project, medical care was provided to almost four thousand people who, most likely, simply would not have received it if there had been no development of appropriate technologies.
The tasks of telemedicine in the modern world
Today, the phenomenon of telemedicine in Russia pursues a number of the following tasks:
- Regular preventive maintenance of the population.
- The maximum possible reduction in the cost of medical services.
- The ability to service remote entities along with removing isolation.
- Increased quality of care
Telemedicine can be called a direction that is at the junction of several areas such as telecommunications, information technology and education. For Russia, this direction is quite new.
The need for medicine in information standards
Computer systems whose activities are aimed at collecting, processing and analyzing medical information today are especially relevant for all health care structures in our country. Along with this, factors such as focusing on solving narrow, local issues, along with the lack of standard methods for storing, transmitting and converting medical information in a single information space, are noticeable obstacles to an effective public health informatization process.
As a result of this, contradictions are born between constantly increasing information needs and the quality of the corresponding provision of health care organizations.
Standardization
At the moment, it is important to recognize that standardization plays a major role in the successful implementation of telemedicine in healthcare. Over the past ten years, the greatest efforts of specialists who work in the field of medical informatics have focused on two main subject areas, namely, the standardization of medical terminology and data transfer.
Telemedicine Standards Concept
The concept of functional telemedicine standards in Russia requires the following tasks:
- The medical information system needs to include exclusively those components that are developed by one manufacturer. This need is explained by the fact that at the moment a large number of medical equipment is equipped with computers with personal software. But such programs either cannot communicate with other components, or conduct a dialogue in their own format, supporting one or another standard for data exchange. The introduction of a single standard regarding the exchange of information would eliminate problems within the information system.
- Today, the end of the period of autonomous computer systems in the field of medicine, which are developed by individual units in order to solve certain problems, is being observed. Now there comes another period when medical computer systems begin to interact with each other. Information technology standards make it possible to exchange information not only within a specific system, but also in relation to external databases as well. This helps regional medical institutions to interact with large centers, as well as Russian organizations with foreign ones.
- Modern standards lead to easier implementation of information technology in the medical field. Thanks to the use of software that supports these standards and equipment for telemedicine, medical institutions will be able to gradually introduce information systems, starting from any departments, ending with the gradual creation of large-scale structures.
- Software that supports modern standards may no longer be outdated and easily upgraded, as well as updated. As practice shows, this type of service is more stable. In addition, it is much cheaper, due to the fact that the introduction of standards can cause increased competition in the software market.
Telemedicine Prospects
For various medical organizations, the introduction of telemedicine technologies may mean an early reduction in the number of patient visits and their length of hospital stay. In addition, this leads to the possibility of personalized medical care, diagnosis of diseases, as well as to an overall improvement in the quality of service. All this, of course, can lead to a reduction in costs, which means higher profits.
Home monitoring
In turn, patients can monitor their health status at home, as well as receive highly specialized medical care, even if they are in remote regions. In addition, telemedicine makes it possible to control the administration of drugs, which also significantly improves the quality of life of patients.
Continuous improvement
The constant development of ever new technologies, for example, the Internet and 5G, make an additional contribution to the endless improvement of the telemedicine system, as well as mobile solutions for the healthcare system. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the number of companies that are developing various mobile solutions in the healthcare sector is already increasing. These include various devices designed for fitness and supporting a healthy lifestyle, as well as all kinds of devices that are used for outpatient studies, such as blood pressure monitors, electrocardiographs, blood glucose meters along with solutions for remote transmission of medical information.
Telemedicine Development Issues
Despite the relevance and convenience, as well as the incredible progress of computer technology in the modern world, there are a number of problems in the functioning of telemedicine that should certainly be found a solution. So, we are talking about the following:
- There are problems ensuring the standardization and compatibility of computer devices along with the technologies that are used in the field of telemedicine.
- Insufficient development of the regulatory framework is observed, just like the lack of international standards, which as a result leads to a large number of poor-quality and unreliable decisions.
- The lack of readiness of patients for the use of a new type of medical care, which is somewhat related to the previous problems.
- Some difficulties with data protection and privacy.
- Another problem is that telemedicine services today are not fully covered by insurance.
All of the above difficulties significantly hamper the further development of the telemedicine market, and therefore require a speedy solution.
Finally
Thus, today the subject of telemedicine of the Russian Federation is the transfer of medical information between points distant from each other, where doctors, patients, or other care providers are located. When it comes to telemedicine, it should be understood that the use and use of telecommunications is meant to connect specialists with hospitals, clinics, and other doctors who provide primary care to various patients who are at a certain distance at this time. A similar contact is made to carry out diagnostics, counseling or treatment, as well as continuing education in the field of healthcare.
We considered that this is telemedicine.